EDITOR’S NOTE: Attack of the Crab Monsters was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 21,  1963 at 3 p.m. It also was played on August 21, 1965 and August 31, 1968.

Directed by Roger Corman, this played double features with his film Not of This Earth.

A group of scientists and sailors land on a remote Pacific Ocean island as a search party for a previous expedition that disappeared without a trace. Just like the New X-Men and Krakoa, huh? While they’re there, the scientists plan on studying the impact of nuclear tests from the Bikini Atoll on the island’s ecosystem.

Charles B. Griffith, who wrote this, said he was kind of conned into it: “Roger came to me and said, “I want to make a picture called Attack of the Giant Crabs” and I asked, “Does it have to be atomic radiation?” He responded, “Yes.” He said it was an experiment. “I want suspense or action in every scene. No kind of scene without suspense or action.” His trick was saying it was an experiment, which it wasn’t. He just didn’t want to bother cutting out the other scenes, which he would do.”

Corman, ever the one to make it seem nice, said “I talked to Chuck Griffith about this. Chuck and I worked out a general storyline before he went to work on the script. I told him, “I don’t want any scene in this picture that doesn’t either end with a shock or the suspicion that a shocking event is about to take place.” And that’s how the finished script read.”

Will Dr. Karl Weigand (Leslie Bradley), geologist James Carson,(Richard H. Cutting) and biologists Jules Deveroux (Mel Welles), Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan) and Dale Drewer (Richard Garland) survive? I know who doesn’t. A sailor named Tate, played by Griffith, who also directed some of the action moments.

Not only does this have giant crabs, they’re also telepathic giant crabs. Guy N. Smith must have seen this movie before he wrote Night of the Crabs, Killer Crabs, The Origin of the Crabs, Crabs on the Rampage, Crabs’ Moon, Crabs: The Human Sacrifice, Crabs’ Fury, Crabs’ Armada, Crabs: Unleashed, Killer Crabs: The Return, Crabs Omnibus and The Charnel Caves: A Crabs Novel.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Giant Behemoth was the second movie to ever be on Chiller Theater on Sunday, September 15, 1963 at 11:10 PM. It also aired on the show on January 11, 1964; June 26, 1965 and December 2, 1967.

While the stop-motion animation special effects by Willis O’Brien — the man who made King Kong alive — were shot in a Los Angeles studio. The rest of the footage, filmed in London, was optically integrated with the effects. The distributor wanted this to be a clone of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and they got exactly what they asked for, nearly scene for scene and word for word.

Scientist Steve Karnes (Gene Evans) tries to warn everyone about the dangers of nuclear radiation. Before he even goes back to the U.S., thousands of dead fish are washing up and a fisherman’s last words point to the existence of a giant monster. Dr. Sampson (Jack MacGowran) identifies it as a Paleosaurus, a water-friendly dinosaur that has electrical powers like an eel. Oh Dr. Sampson. That kind of power only exists in this story.

Prof. James Bickford (Andre Morell) and Steve have a plan. You see the dinosaur is already dying from all the radiation, so they decide to give it even more radiation. This is where, as a kid, I would grow enraged at humanity and despise them for the way they have turned the world. I still feel like that as an old man. I wish that the monsters would win in these movies.

One of the reasons that this is so close to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is that they share the same writer, Daniel Lewis James, who was blacklisted and wrote this as Daniel Hyatt. Years later, his confidence ruined by the blacklist, he would use the name Danny Santiago. His novel Famous All Over Town won awards and was to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The book became a major work of Chicano literature and Hispanic teens saw its main character, the Danny Santiago who wrote the book about his life, as a role model. They didn’t know that it was really a white man who had grown up in Kansas City and was an assistant director on Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. His agent, Carl Brandt, had no idea who he was and had never seen him in person. He also wrote Gorgo.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Brain from Planet Arous was the first movie to ever be on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 14, 1963 at 3 PM. It also aired on the first Chilly Billy Halloween show on October 31, 1964 and on September 24, 1966.

Directed Nathan Juran was the brother of Joseph M. Juran, a man who introduced Japanese and American companies to improve their work and also created the Juran trilogy, an approach to cross-functional management that is made up of three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. His theory, in short, is that without change, there will be constant waste; during change there will be increased costs, but after the improvement, margins will be higher and the increased costs will make up for the losses.

Nathan had a pretty great career of directing films, including The Black Castle, The Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, First Men In the Moon, Jack the Giant Killer and The Boy Who Cried Werewolf.

He was unhappy with this movie, so instead of his real name, it’s credited to Nathan Hertz.

Stephen King even credited it with some of his initial success, telling Playboy, “Carrie, for example, derived to a considerable extent from a terrible grade-B movie called The Brain from Planet Arous.”

Gor (spoken for by Dale Tate) is an alien criminal shaped like a human brain who has come from a planet named Arous. He possesses scientist Steve March (John Agar) and begins to take over the world. Luckily, Vol (also the voice of Tate) has come to Earth to save us from Gor and is inside a dog that belongs to March’s fiancee Sally Fallon (Joyce Meadows).

If the story of a space cop chasing a criminal to Earth who can jump bodies sounds familiar, well, they took it from the book Needle by Hal Clement. You know who else did? The filmmakers who brought you The Hidden.

The giant brain in this often gets made fun of, but you know, it works for the time that it was born in. It played double features with Teenage Monster and, obviously, as a TV favorite. After all, it’s the first movie that Pittsburgh’s Chiller Theater would ever air. When the show came back on the air in September of 2023, it also was the first film shown.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan was on USA Up All Night on January 14 and October 13, 1995; September 13, 1996; June 13 and October 4, 1997.

Just like a band that continually says that they are going to retire, this was also intended to be the final film in the series. It takes Jason out of his element and features probably one of the greatest horror movie trailers ever:

It’s just so ridiculous that you have to see the film, you know?

Well, it’s not the last film in the series, but it’s the last one that Paramount would produce until 2009, as New Line Cinema would take over after this. And the working title? Another Bowie song, Ashes to Ashes.

The movie starts with a teenager playing a prank on his girlfriend, dressing like Jason. But the boat they are on reanimates him and he kills them both.

Soon, the SS Lazarus is setting sail from Crystal Lake to New York City to celebrate the graduation of the senior class. Along for the ride are biology teacher Dr. McCulloch and his niece Rennie, English teacher Colleen Van Deusen, J.J. (Saffron Henderson, the voice of Kid Goku and Kid Gohan on Dragonball Z), boxer Julius Gaw, popular girls Tamara and Eva (Kelly Hu, The Scorpion King) and video student Wayne. Oh yeah! And Toby the dog!

Everyone but McCulloch, Van Deusen, Rennie, Julius, Toby and Sean are killed, so they escape aboard a life raft to New York City, where Jason stalks them in the Big Apple.

This movie is packed with some audience-pleasing moments, like J.J. getting killed by her own guitar, Julius’ head getting punched into orbit after trying to outbox Jason, a gang that gets Rennie high and makes her even more freaked out by Jason, her uncle getting killed after it’s revealed that he tried to drown her as a child…oh man, this one is packed with greatness. And then Jason drowns in a sewer.

Due to the box office results of this film, Paramount sold the series to New Line. We’d have to wait 4 years for the results. That said — this movie made $14,343,976 with a budget of $5,000,000. That’s not horrible numbers.

The poster art on this post comes from Vile Consumption. Buy it!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood was on USA Up All Night on March 13 and 14, 1992; May 14, 1994; January 13, 1995; September 13, 1996 and June 13, 1997. It usually played with Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning or Friday the 13th Pari VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. 

Associate producer Barbara Sachs helped dream up several concepts for this film and according to writer Daryl Haney, “She wanted it to be unlike any other Friday the 13th movie. She wanted it to win an Academy Award.” GQ ran a great article on this film.

Originally intended as a crossover with Freddy Krueger, the logline for this film was, “What if Carrie fought Jason?” What ended up happening was one of Becca’s favorite films in the series.

Directed by John Carl Buechler (Troll, The Dungeonmaster), who also contributed to the special effects, this film establishes the definitive Jason. This is also because it’s the first appearance of Kane Hodder in the role.

Jason is still at the bottom of Crystal Lake, but as Tina Shepard watches her alcoholic father abuse her mother, her mental powers emerge and she drowns her father.

Fast forward and she’s a teenager (Lar Park Lincoln, House II) whose mother (voiceover artist Susan Blu) and Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser, Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s!) have taken her back to that house to study (exploit) her powers.

Dr. Crews bedside manner is, in a word, the shits. He screams at Tina until her powers start working. She gets upset and runs outside, wishing that she could bring her father back from the dead. The only problem? She brings Jason back instead.

There is also — can you even be surprised at this point — a house of teens throwing a party for Michael (William Butler, the 1990 Night of the Living Dead). They include Russell, Sandra (Heidi Kozak, Slumber Party Massacre 2), Kate, Ben, Eddie (Jeff Bennett, the voice of Johnny Bravo), David, Maddy, Robin (Elizabeth Kaitan, who was in the Vice Academy movies), Nick and Melissa.

Tina can foresee that they will all die and Jason lives up to her visions. She’s the Final Girl and has to lose everything, even her mother. As she fights back with her powers, she pulls the mask off his face, revealing it to be decayed and near demonic. Finally, her father rises from the dead and drags Jason back underwater. Yet even after all of that, we can still hear the theme song as someone finds the killer’s mask.

The working title for this film was Birthday Bash, but the original script was even titled Jason’s Destroyer. There were 9 different cuts sent to the MPAA to avoid an X rating, which is still amazing to me. Even more upsetting is that Paramount threw away all of the cut footage, so there’s little to no chance that an uncut version will ever be seen. I still think that the rumored 1989 Dutch release on VHS, which includes all the gore, is an urban legend.

A cool bit of trivia for Friday the 13th fans: the narration in the beginning of the film is by Walt Gorney, who played Crazy Ralph in the first two films.

Kane Hodder really proves why he should be Jason here, as he almost died in a stunt where he fell through the stairs and achieved the record for the longest uninterrupted on-screen controlled burn in Hollywood history at 40 seconds.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Abducted II: The Reunion was on USA Up All Night on July 29, 1995; February 16 and December 14, 1996 and September 5, 1997  — always teamed up with the original.

Directed and writer Boon Collins is back in the world of Abducted and if you thought that movie was strange — even if it was based on the real-life story of Olympic biathlon athlete Kari Swenson — this time he’s getting even weirder.

Yes, nine years later, Boon would bring back Lawrence King-Phillips as the evil Vern, Dan Haggerty as his father Joe and co-writer Lindsay Bourne to tell us what happened after Joe shot his son, knocked him off a bridge and smashed him into some rocks.

And you thought he was dead.

Actually, you probably never saw it.

Maria (Raquel Bianca), Sharon (Debbie Rochon) and Ingrid (Donna Jason, Undefeatable, Honor and Glory) decide to have a reunion in the woods of Harmony Lake National Park, learning nothing from Mother’s Day, and get drunk in a tent, act rude to the locals and make plenty of noise, which as you know is exactly how to die in a slasher. Sharon and Ingrid soon escape — the latter goes full feral and says that she can think like Vern now — and make a plan to save Maria.

Since the last movie, Joe (Haggerty) has pretty much sold out and given up. He’s being paid by rich hunter Brad Allen (Jan-Michael Vincent) to guide him on a stone sheep hunt. The same sheep that his son has been protecting. Meanwhile, his son — How is he still alive? Does Joe know? — is watching his new captive give herself a sponge bath.

I mean, Vern died by crashing on rocks and he doesn’t seem to have any supernatural powers like a Vorhees or Myers. Could the power of sheer horniness be keeping him alive? He’s also wearing fur and deer antlers, as if he’s cosplaying Tom Drury from Don’t Go In the Woods…Alone! 

This is a film filled with magic, like how Ingrid escapes from Vern by cartwheeling through the woods or when Brad’s helicopter appears and Sharon yells, “It’s a plan!” before she takes off her shirt and uses it to get his attention like a flag. Or maybe it’s Debbie Rochon’s breasts that get all the notice. There’s also a moment where Vern asks Maria about her first time and the film flashes back to an actual sex scene, which is the kind of filmmaking I depend on from Canadian direct-to-video movies and director Boon Collins.

Also: two of the girls may be in a couple, which is pretty progressive for 1985.

The end of this movie teases a third movie and man, I want that to happen even if nobody but me would care.